Week 7C-8C: Grade beams phase 1

We’ve had several coordination issues on the job because of the hillside. The one we’re dealing with this week has to do with the downward slope retaining wall which was originally designed to retain 6’-0” of dirt. Unfortunately, the hillside forms a bowl in the middle which caused our retained height to skyrocket up to 9’-0”. A revision called a structural bulletin was issued and stamped by the engineer. This is basically a field revision that one gives to the city inspector to show that the engineer has examined the condition and has revised the original structural drawings to incorporate the change. This change is also noted on the structural observation form that the engineer signs when they inspect the work prior to the pouring of concrete.

Last week we had some slow-downs due to the availability of rebar but the week ended with the crews up to their armpits in steel and dirt. We’re on a tight schedule now since I’m leaving for Berlin at the end of the month to teach, so there is no room for error or delays. The week started out with some frantic calls to our plumber. A kink in the schedule had placed him towards the middle of this week, then by Saturday Garcia Masonry made it clear that their work was going to be ahead of schedule and we’d be ready for inspection on Tuesday. Always looking to make up time I lined up our inspections with the hope that everything would fall into place at the last minute.

Several phone calls later I finally managed to get the plumber (who was tied up on a job in the Palisades, an area with notoriously bad phone reception) on the line. Armen Sargsian, of AS Plumbing got his guys out to the job just in the nick of time, and at the time of this missive it assumed that all of our work is ready for inspection by the Deputy Inspector, and Christian Williamson of CTW Engineers.

Guess how big the steel is? The easy way to figure it out is multiply 1/8” (# of the steel). We are using #10 rebar for our grade beams which means that the rebar in this picture is 1-1/4”- about the size of a closet clothes bar.